Warhammer Underworlds Grand Alliance Warband Boxes - Sprues & Brews (2024)

The new edition of Warhammer Underworlds exploded onto the scene a few weeks ago, and with it are sweeping changes to the way the game works with everything from the playing board to the cards and warband rules changing. Today, alongside a couple of new Warbands and some new Rivals Decks, there are also 4 boxes up for pre order that revisit 4 old warbands each, with each box dedicated to a grand alliance. With each box costing just over £60, this is an ace way of picking up some warbands that you may be missing along with their new rules

In this review we’ll be taking a look at each of those warbands and seeing what they do in the new edition of the game, as well as checking out the models themselves

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us the new sets over for free to review! If you would like to support the site then why not order your Warhammer Underworlds through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed full unboxings of all four warband boxes, which you can see below or over on YouTube

So without further ado, let’s dive back into Embergard!

The Crimson Court

First up we have The Crimson Court, a flex deck with some interesting mechanics.

Essentially with this warband you are performing a balancing act between making them savage by gaining hunger tokens by making attacks (which increases their movement) or having them inspired (by gaining control tokens from treasure tokens) to increase their stats. What’s nice here is that you have quite a lot of control over this – after you gain your third hunger token you choose who to make savage, it doesnt have to be the fighter who did the damage.

They have some cool once per game abilities:

Bestial Transformation lets a fighter discard their upgrades and instead gain +1 attack and an additional movement if they are savage, making them very fast

Vampiric Might gives a fighter Cleave and Ensnare

Tenebrous Form gives your fighter an amazing 3 dodge when making a save

Dark Transfusion allows you to damage a fighter within 1 hex (2 if inspired) and heal your fighter one point too

Kainan’s Reapers

Next up we have the Bonereaper Warband Kainan’s Reapers, a Flex Warband. Their inspire mechanic is pretty cool – when you slay a fighter you gain Bone Tithe tokens equal to their bounty – then you can spend this to inspire your fighters, again costing the bounty value – so Kainan will cost 3, whereas Nohem doesnt cost any!

Mortek Advance also allows your grunts to move as long as they finish their move next to another minion

This comboes quite well with their first one per game ability Dire Ultimatum which makes it impossible for anyone but your leader to be targeted by attacks, setting your weak troops up for some support attacks without being killed first

Ranks Unbroken by Dissent gives your attack Grievous if you flank or surround the target

Monolith Stace allows you to give your minions guard tokens – you pick as many equal to the round number

Unrelenting Assault allows you to remove move/charge tokens from a minion, setting up further charging!

The Headsman’s Curse

Next on the chopping block are the Headsman’s Curse, a Strike Warband. This warband revolves around marking enemy fighters as “condemned” – when a condemned fighter is slain you gain power cards equal to their bounty and any fighter that inflicts damage to a condemned target can inspire, making this aggressive deck inspire very quickly

Eternal Duty allows you to raise a friendly fighter when your leader slays a target

Whet the Blade is a bit positional but allows you to give your leader Grievous as long as as they are next to the Sharpener

Discorporate allows you to teleport a fighter to any empty hex

Cackling Court makes both swords and hammers successes on a dice roll as long as the target is flanked or surrounded.

The Grymwatch

The final warband in this box are The Grymwatch, a Take and Hold Warband.

This is a swarm warband that keeps coming back – In the name of the King allows your leader to either inspire a friendly fighter or bring a slain fighter back, or if you are the underdog do both! In addition, you always get to inspire a number of fighters equal to the bounty of slain fighters and fighters in enemy territory – if you are fighting a warband that hangs back you’re likely to get your entire warband inspired turn 1

Each Battle Round they get to pick one of 3 delusions:

Defenders of the Realm allows you to reroll saves while in friendly territory

The Royal Hunt gives attacks +1 attack against damaged targets

To The Walls allows you to use In the Name of the King twice!

Da Kunnin’ Krew

Da Kunnin’ Krew is a Flex Warband with some sneaky abilties. Their inspire mechanic triggers off targets being flanked or surrounded, and while Mannok or Torka is attacking minions count as 2 models for working this out.

A Kunnin’ Plan allows all minons to move a number of hexes equal to the round number

Dirty Tricks is a nice gamble ability that always pays off for the Krew – just before an attack roll or save is made by your opponent you ask them to pick Upgrade or Ploy you then shuffle 3 cards and draw one – if the result is what they picked you get a power card, if not the save isnt made and you get to choose the dice result

Murk Lurkers allows half circle and full circle results to be successes when making a save roll.

Grinkrak’s Looncourt

A very different Warband this one, and they are Flex so can do a bit of everything!

As a might Knight (of sorts..) Grinkrak can Dub his rabble of fighters in order to allow them to trigger Quest abiltiies

Their main mechanic revolves around Quests, which they get instead of the one use abilities most other warbands get. Instead you pick one of the quests to do at the start of the turn, with the rewards of these quests generally inspiring fighters or granting power cards. While this at first makes these seem harder to get, each dubbed fighter on a quest gets a new ability for the rest of the game, such as extra movement, attacks or the Grievous rule.

I think this is going to be one that can be very strong with a skilled player.

Blackpowder’s Buccaneers

Blackpowder’s Buccanners are our first Mastery Warband, and who doesn’t love Ogor pirates?

Their main mechanic revolves around loot – Causing attacks causes you to gain Swag tokens, which are then spent by using the special abilities listed on the card – once your leader has spent 3 Swag they inspire the entire warband. This makes it pretty easy to inspire, and there are some cool abilities here

Swag Shrapnel allows your leader to hit additional targets after his attack – you get to pick 2 enemy fighters within 2 hexes and get to spend up to 2 swag, with each swag allowing you to roll an attach dice with hammers or crits causing 1 damage and stagger

Swag Blast gives your weapon Cleave

Swag Mortar gives you extra range for each swag spent

I really like this warband and think they will be great fun!

Morgok’s Krushers

The Orruks in the box are unsurprisingly a Strike Warband.

Their main mechanic is Waaagh! energy, and this is generated when a fighter attacks, with members of your warband inspiring when they spend 3 Waagh instead of playing a power card.

Ded ‘Ard allows you to spend up to two Waaagh tokens in order to gain one or two abilities out of the following – Get a guard token and/or give someone attacking you Stagger

Shut it, Pipsqueak is a nice ability that has a chance to stop a ploy card from working based on your roll

Finally Get a Move On, Ya Gitz allows your leader to push your fighters a number of hexes equal to the battle round at the cost of a charge token.

Hexbane’s Hunters

The first warband we are going to be checking out from the Order box is the one that hails from the Cities of Sigmar! These guys are primarily a Strike warband, but I think other decks could also do some work with these.

I’ve always loved Witch Hunter models, so of course this is probably my favourite warband of this set.

They have a very straightforward Inspire mechanic. When one of your Azyrite Agents dies (that is, all the human characters in the warband) you can then choose another Agent and Inspire them. If Poch dies, then the two dogs Inspire. Simple. I like it!

They also use a Bounty mechanic when determining how many upgrades the surviving characters can have, which makes sense from a lore POV and makes for a fun additional rule for the warband.

They lack some real combat punch IMO, but you get a good number of models with some interesting battle mechanics which really favour you losing one or two models early doors, and combo well with Strike decks.

Thundrik’s Profiteers

From one of the quickest warbands, to the slowest and sturdiest. They are also one of the only Mastery deck warbands in the box.

The Kharadron Overlords are renowned for having some punchy shots, and this is reflected in the fighter’s cards. They have good range which they can utilise along with the one time use movement shenanigans they have access too.

They Inspire by scoring Objective cards, HOWEVER your leader must still be on the battlefield, so you need to use your leader wisely.

They too get a warband ability, called ‘This is Mine, Fair and Square’, which stops enemy fighters from pushing back the sky dwarfs, so long as they are holding treasure tokens. Very lore fluffy.

Hail of Aethershot and Custom Aethershot Rounds buff your shooting once per battle each.

Myari’s Purifiers

Next up we have a warband from the Lumineth Realm-lords. Again, some fantastic looking minis which are drawn from different elements of the Realm-lords.These ideally lean into Flex style decks.

The Inspire mechanic is easy enough, and a little different. After you’ve made a successful Attack or Save roll for a friendly fighter, if all of those results were successful then the fighter inspires.

They also have a unique ability called Aetherquartz Reserve. Every fighter starts the game with one and it allows you a free re-roll. Each fighter can only use this once. For as long as your fighter has it’s quartz then it gets +1 Save. Bahannar, grants another bonus from his quartz, which stops him from literally being pushed around.

These guys are the speediest of the Order warbands, and pack a bit more of a punch. They aren’t the strongest of warbands, and may take some practice, but they have the potential of being pretty tasty.

Ylthari’s Guardians

The second lot of Elves (sorry Aelves) are of the Sylvaneth variety. Although, unlike there Lumineth buddies, this warband favours Strike decks.

They are pretty similar to the Lumineth to be honest, with plenty of speed. The once per battle abilities allow you some bonus movement, whilst also providing some extra close combat punch.

The Inspire mechanic…is a little…lengthy… In short you collect Power cards for your fighters, and once they hit 5 of them they can inspire. It’s a bit, much when you consider the other warband’s Inspire mechanics.

What is very cool is that all of their abilites can be used throughout your game, instead of being one use only like a lot of the other ones. The majority of the abilities become stronger as you start losing fighters, which will surprise your opponent as suddenely your last couple of Sylavaneth suddenely really power up.

Gorechose of Dromm

Probably my favourite Chaos warband in the box, and unsurprising, as it’s Khorne, this deck leans towards a Strike deck!

To Inspire these lads you need to take some skulls. Once you have 8 Blood Tithe points your whole warband inspires. To obtain Blood Tithe you need to get killing, or take some hits yourself. For every damage you take you get a point, and every enemy you slay you obtain there bounty’s points value in points.

Yes, all of the abilities lean in to combat and charging, and also require you to spend Blood Tithe points to use. They are also all once per game abilities. Final Frenzy allows you to discard tithe points to obtain a chance to heal, a rare ability indeed in Underworlds!

Ephilim’s Pandaemonium

By far the most bonkers models in the box are that of Ephilim’s Pandaemonium, a Tzeetch loving Chaos warband that really a Mastery deck.

I’d probably put these guys up as maybe one of the trickest decks to use, at least in my opinion. However, with that said, the models are fun and they come with some fun abilities to boot, including the abilitiy to summon back your minions.

Your leader is key here, as he is quite rightly the puppet master of his many minions. He will inspire when two of his minions inspire. After an Action step you can choose to Inspire one of his minions, however one of the other minion’s gains stagger, so be careful.

When one of the minions dies within two hexes of your leader then you get a free power card, which is really good because you can always summon back your minions, so feel free to push them up the board and in to combat.

Aside from the summoning mechanic, the remaining action abilities are all once per game.

Khagra’s Ravagers

If you prefer your Chaos warriors to be a bit more, indesive/on the fence/happy playing with all of the Chaos Gods then this could be the warband for you. With a nice balance of armour and some heavy hitting, this warband favours the Take and Hold decks.

Strengthing the cause of the Take and Hold decks are the warband’s mechanics, which has you looking to desecrating the tokens on the board. Once you have done this to at least two tokens, then your warband Inspires.

Love the fact that as well as desecrating tokens, you can slay enemy fighters with treasure tokens, and flp those too!

Again, three unique abilities for these, and yet again all of them are once per battle. I particular like the Eye of the Gods as that is so Chaos and finds itself in every Slaves to Darkness book. It can grant you a Save or Attack bonus.

The Dread Pageant

The final warband is the Dread Pageant, a truly…erm, unique looking warband that follow the leaders of Slaanesh!

These folks love a Flex deck, thanks to there excellent mix of skills and abilities.

Being Slaanesh, it should come as no surprise that the Inspire mechanic leans in to this. Your fighters become inspired should every one of them be wounded or if there are more damaged fighters, than undamaged, in the game.

They do have another mechanic, which grants + to your Move when charging, however you have to have taken damage, so not the best, but is lore-wise fluffy.

They also have 4 once per battle abilities which are really straight forward, granting you the likes of free rerolls and even inflicting damage on yourself if one of your characters has a treasure token. Ahhh Slaanesh…

That wraps up all four Grand Alliance boxes.

All-in-all a very good selection of minis across all four factions. There is something for everyone within at least one of these. You can buy the cards seperately should you already have the models, although those card packs aren’t cheap either.

The value of these boxes is hard to say. If there is one or two in a box you’ve wanted for ages then amazing. If you just want one of the four within the box, then the value decreses a lot.

I didn’t have many, so they were brilliant for me.

The cards were OK. Lots of one use only abilities and some generally OK fighter cards. I need to get more games with all of them to get a real feel for each warband along with there recommend deck, before of course trying out and making your own mind up which deck is better.

Our thanks again to Games Workshop for sending, and remember you can preorder through Element Games to nab a bit of a saving against RRP and help us out too!

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